


The One With Sam's Epic PowerPoint

by Fleepfloop



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bodyswap, Case Fic, F/M, Family, John Winchester Not Being an Asshole, Memory Loss, Original Character(s), Stanford Era (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27187268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fleepfloop/pseuds/Fleepfloop
Summary: During a hunt, John is cursed by a witch to swap bodies with the next person he thinks about. That turns out to be his youngest son, Sam…who is in the middle of giving a presentation at Stanford. Suddenly John finds himself facing an auditorium filled with students with only a well-made PowerPoint presentation to guide him.ORThe one where John and Sam switch bodies and Dean is a frog.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Also, my knowledge of Granville Ohio and Army ranks came from a quick and likely incomplete Google search. Please enjoy with a grain of salt and large dose of creative liberty.

Chapter 1

///

October, 2001

John was on a witch hunt in Granville Ohio. Somebody had been turning adults in positions of power into children, and they were making terrible decisions. The sheriff had made speed limits illegal. The jailor had let everybody go because he was bored. The mayor was pushing a city ordinance to make the people bring him candy. It was total anarchy.

The people had accepted within weeks of the changes that there were no longer any rules. Criminals of all backgrounds were back on the streets, and people were terrified.

The city had been a ghost town when John drove in. Schools and shops were closed. The few people on the street were engaged in a fist fight over what appeared to be a stray cat.

Only one restaurant had kept its doors open, and it obviously catered to a shady crowd. John pulled his truck into the parking lot and went inside. He was carrying his concealed pistol and at least three different knives. The place was disgusting, even by his standards. As he weighed the risks to his health against the knowledge that he might gain in a place like this, he found himself questioning several of his other life choices.

How did he let himself get to this point?

A dive bar in Ohio wasn’t the right place to engage in existential angst.

John ordered a beer.

Service was slow, or perhaps the bartender was ignoring him. Either way, John had to ask three times before a chipped pint-glass filled with amber-colored liquid was thrown his way.

“Thanks, buddy,” he murmured, staring into the depths of the liquid in his glass. He took a sip and nearly gagged. The beer was warm, and if he hadn’t actually seen the guy pull the tap, he would have suspected that it was actual piss.

_Fan-fucking-tastic._

Now that he knew what to expect, John quickly drained half of his glass without really tasting it. He was way to sober for this shit.

As he sat at the bar contemplating his beer, he began to listen in on the conversations that were going on around him. There were all sorts of unsavory types in the joint tonight. The guy to his left was planning to rob what was left of the local Walmart. John had passed it on his way into town, and it was little more than a smoking ruin.

The bastard at the pool table had three women chained up in his basement.

The guys at the table in the back were about to shoot up the place.

_Wait…what the hell?_

John turned quickly; subtlety be damned. His hearing was phenomenal for an old guy…not that he was an old guy. At a table in the back, three middle aged white guys dressed in jeans and flannel shirts were pulling automatic rifles out of duffle bags.

Options ran through John’s mind, each of them awful and likely to end in injury. He had moral issues with opening fire on the men before they could get started, which was odd because he was basically a serial killer himself. On the other hand, he had dedicated his life to saving people and hunting Things. It could be argued that person who would voluntarily gun down innocent patrons in a bar wasn’t far from that realm of Things.

But could he get there fast enough?

The first shots rang out and somebody screamed.

“G-gun! He’s got a gun!”

John jumped over the bar, crouched behind it and was eye to eye with the bartender. The look on the man’s face was confusing. Part terror, and part excitement.

John demanded to know where the other emergency exits were. A place this big, there had to be more than the one in the back that one of the shooters was guarding. 

Instead of offering a helpful answer, the bartender chose to swing the wooden baseball bat that he had been retrieving from under the bar. John deflected the blow with his arm, but it stung. Maintaining his composure, he relieved the other man of his weapon.

“You wanna try that again, pal?”

“What are you thinking, jumping out at me like that?” the man demanded.

“I’m just trying not to get shot. You gonna help me with that or not?”

“There’s an exit though the kitchen.”

“Okay. Alright. You get out and call 911. I’ll start sending folks out your way.”

“It’s just…well, there’s nobody left to run dispatch. I don’t think my call will go through.”

“We’ll worry about that later. Just run and call. Go now!”

The bartender hesitated for a moment.

“My name is Harry.”

“Get out of here!”

Finally, Harry the barkeep did as he was told.

From there, it was a matter of seeing which direction he went, and listening as the fire alarm began to wail. The shooters profanity-laced shouts could be heard.

Slowly, gripping the baseball bat tightly, John poked his head up over the bar and scanned the room. There were a lot of bodies on the floor. He had hoped that 911 would respond quickly. Perhaps Harry had been right about dispatch.

He was about to make a run for the exit, when he saw movement under one of the pool tables. Somebody was still alive, and one of the shooters was heading that way. Cursing his heroic tendencies, John stood up and yelled.

The three men turned their guns on him.

_Aw, fuck._

That’s when John remembered that he was also armed. He pulled out his pistol, a beauty he liked to call Patrice, before anyone else could move; fired twice, and then ducked back behind the bar.

“You killed Kenny!”

_Seriously?_

He heard footsteps and stayed down. He no longer had the element of surprise, but he was a professional, and these guys were not. He just had to pull his trigger faster.

Now there were sirens.

_Fucking finally!_

“Aw shit!” the shooter cursed, turning towards the window as the flashing blue lights approached.

John made a break for the back door. He felt the bullet hit his shoulder before he heard the gun go off.

Outside, Harry was talking to an officer in a bullet-proof vest, and men dressed in riot gear packing assault rifles were jumping out the back of a large van.

Somebody yelled at him to freeze. Then somebody tackled him to the ground.

“The shooters are still inside,” Harry tried to help.

John’s injured arm was cuffed to his other, and his gun was bagged as evidence. This was going to be a real hassle. Patrice wasn’t his only gun, but she was one of his favorites.

“This one needs medical treatment,” shouted the officer who had tackled him, making sure to pat his injury extra hard as he walked away. John winced.

“Lotta folks in there a lot worse off than me,” he told the medic who came to attend to him.

Later…

John sat next to a man named Detective Brian Scott across from Harry the Barkeep in an interview room at the local precinct. Nobody had answered down at the Granville Station, so Harry had called Columbus. John had pulled out one of his fake FBI badges, and introduced himself as Detective Jones. It was around midnight. They were all exhausted. The entire office seemed to have taken the night off.

“That’s how it is these days,” Harry told Detective Scott. John was listening attentively. “Since the rules changed.”

“What rules changed?” Detective Scott wanted to know.

“How long has this been going on?” John demanded.

Harry sighed.

“It all started about three months ago when Earl, he’s the jailor, decided to let everybody go.”

“Who’s everybody?” John asked.

“Everybody from the jail. He just, opened the doors and told all of the convicts to scram.” Harry replied, sort of answering both questions at the same time. “Then the Sheriff killed the speed limits…and nobody knows what’s going on with the mayor. The rules didn’t just change, they were totally abolished. Anybody can do anything. The law gave up, and we’re all on our own.”

“I assure you; the law has not given up.” Declared Detective Scott.

“Did you happen to notice anything strange or different before all of this started? Were there any mysterious deaths? Maybe new folks in town? How about livestock mutilations?”

“What? Livestock mutilations? Who does that?”

“You’d be surprised,” Detective Scott said knowingly. John glanced over at him.

“No. No, there wasn’t any of that- well, there was that one lady.”

“Can you describe her? What about this woman struck you as odd?”

“Well, that she moved here, to start with.” Harry shrugged. “Pretty. Blonde. Huge jugs. She seems really nice, and the men around here’ll go for anything new.”

Right, probably a witch then.

John asked a few more questions, and managed to get both the woman’s name and her address. Detective Scott also handed him a business card with his cell phone number, and told him to call if the department could be of any assistance.

///

The National Guard moved in the next day. Men and women wearing fatigues and combat gear were out in force. They were standing in for the police, rounding up criminals and protecting the innocent. The whole town had been written off as a case of mass hysteria.

For the time being, there was a mandatory lockdown in place. Nobody had been going to work lately anyway, since work was hard and consequences weren’t being enforced. There was no reason for anybody to be outside at all. Staff Sergeant Harvey Hodges admitted to John that he was hoping that spending some time confined to their homes might make whatever was happening wear off…or stop.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a case this big,” SSG Hodges explained, “The whole town seems to be affected. It’s fucking terrifying, is what it is.”

John nodded his agreement.

Detective Scott and a few of his people had hung around, but the Army had taken over as far as enforcing the laws, and the FBI were conducting their own investigation.

Bobby had confirmed that John’s fake badge was accurate.

John had been given free-rein to go anywhere or interview anybody that he wanted. It seemed too good to be true.

///

It was morning.

John was in his motel room eating some pizza that the army had carted in from the next town, when the chain lock on his door slowly began to slide open. He grabbed Patrice and aimed for the door. The dead bolt clicked to the open position, and the door knob turned.

There was a loud crack, and the door flew open. Nobody entered.

After a moment, john walked over to the door. Leading with his gun, he scanned the parking lot and the periphery.

Nothing. That was weird.

He closed the door and locked it behind him. 

There was a blonde woman sitting at the table eating a slice of his pizza.

“I hear you’ve been asking about me.”

John realized his mistake just as she blew a strange purple powder into his face. His last thought was fear that he wouldn’t be able to protect Sam if this witch killed him now.


	2. Two

Chapter 2

///

John found himself staring out at a sea of faces in a brightly lit auditorium.

“Are you finished, Mr. Winchester?” a voice prompted from behind him.

John turned towards the voice and found that it came from a scrawny man wearing black-rimmed glasses and a man-bun. He tried to swallow his distaste.

_What fresh hell was this?_

“Mr. Winchester?” the voice prompted again. “A dramatic pause is one thing. This is ridiculous.”

_You’re ridiculous._

John had always prided himself on his detective work, so he paused for a moment longer to search for clues. The man with his too-long hair and air of pretension. The auditorium. Several people were taking notes. Projected on the screen behind him was a PowerPoint.

_Got it._

He began to read aloud from the screen, keeping it simple and to the point. He spoke as though he were briefing soldiers prior to deployment, even where the PowerPoint got wordy. John abbreviated what he could, and summarized the parts the seemed difficult. He noted several students nodding, as though understanding the content, and felt a surge of pride.

Finally, he reached the last slide.

Werewolves. By Sam Winchester.

There was a smattering of polite applause from the room. John turned expectantly to the ne’er-do-well he assumed was in charge.

“Excellent Mr. Winchester,” the man gushed. “Class, this is a perfect example of what I wanted when I gave you all this assignment. For a few moments, while Sam was talking, I was actually afraid. I was completely enthralled, and I was almost convinced that werewolves were a legit concern to my well-being. Thank you, Sam.”

John gave what he hoped was a winning smile, and took a seat next to a blonde girl who was waving him over. He glanced at the inside cover of the notebook on the desk, and was relieved to see that it bore Sam’s name.

He started to take notes.

The next presentation was about unicorns. It was complete bullshit.

After class, John spent some time digging through the backpack that had been next to Sam’s seat. He didn’t know what was happening. While all of his instincts told him that he needed to be somewhere else -that he needed to find his son- he didn’t want Sam to be angry with him. The hadn’t spoken since Sam had left for Stanford in August. He could only assume that that’s where he was right now.

Somehow, John was trapped in his son’s body. Which meant that Sam was likely somewhere in John’s. Which would be helpful, if John had any idea where his body was.

He checked the planner in Sam’s bag to see when his next class was. That was his master plan for the moment, just try to fit in until he could figure out what was going on. He had a psychology class in an hour, and he asked the blonde girl beside him who seemed to be one of Sam’s friends what building it was in.

“Really Sam? You’ve been here since August.”

“I’ve got amnesia.” John replied. He hoped that she thought he was flirting.

“I’ll show you, I’m in that class too,” the girl laughed. “My name is Jessica, just in case you’ve forgotten that as well.”

Well, now he couldn’t call Dean during his break and find out what case they were working on, but he could certainly use the time to gather intel about his youngest.”

Jessica decided that it was time for lunch, and the two of them entered a cafeteria. John got a sandwich, and followed Jessica’s example on how to pay with his student ID. Then he followed her to a table occupied by several other students who greeted them both by name.

“Hey guys,” Jessica greeted the group, which didn’t help John, but he couldn’t exactly play the amnesia card again.

He sat down next to a young man wearing khaki cargo shorts and a salmon colored button-down. So far, John wasn’t a fan of Sam’s friends.

“So, you’re all coming to my party tonight, right guys?” Jessica demanded, eyeing the group. She looked intensely at John, who found himself nodding. He really hoped that Sam at least liked this girl.

“Can’t, Jess,” said the one in the pink shirt next to John. “We’re hazing the new pledges tonight.”

“You’re such a dick, Nicholas,” one of the other girls at the table snorted. This one had pink hair.

“Seriously,” Jessica agreed. She turned to John. “Sam, remind me again why you insist on hanging out with him?”

John shrugged.

Apparently, Nick-the-Dick was Sam’s friend.

Nick slapped him on the back, and John seriously considered breaking the kid’s wrist.

“Sammy and I go way back,” Nick-the-Dick laughed, “I’m like, the coolest RA ever.”

“Actually, you’re kind of the worst,” another boy said. This one was dressed all in black and sported a neck-beard.

“You’re kind of the worst.” Nick-the-Dick argued back.

“Don’t engage, Randel. He’s a Neanderthal.” Pink-hair said to Neck-Beard.

///

John was all sorts of confused by the time he made it through Sam’s psychology class. He had gone to find the student dorms, and it was only by luck that he happened to spot Sam’s buddy Nick-the-Dick. John had followed Nick at a safe distance and waited a few minutes before entering the building that the other boy had disappeared into.

He showed his ID at the desk like the signs said to, and noticed that the number 4 was still lit up on the elevator.

Lucky for John, somebody had posted the names of each room’s occupants on the doors. He found Sam’s name as well as that of somebody named Phil on a door four down from the douchebag RA. The key in Sam’s pocket fit the lock on the door.

The room smelled terrible. Phil apparently was used to having somebody clean up after him, so there were clothes slung everywhere, and the sides of the room were well marked by the pile of clothes in the middle of the floor. Apparently, Sam was in the habit of shoving everything Phil tossed on his side back at it’s rightful owner. There were also food containers all over the place. Chinese on the desk. Burgers on the bed. And open box of pizza lay in the floor, and John didn’t see it before he stepped on it, leaving a footprint on the pepperonis.

He left the pizza right where it had been and wiped his boots off on one of Phil’s discarded shirts.

Finally, he had a moment alone to call his eldest.

“…Sammy?” the voice on the other line asked hesitantly. The boys hadn’t been communicating with each other either. “What’s going on? Are you hurt?”

“Dean,” John began, “Something has happened. Just listen.”

He waited a moment as his son began a tirade of questions about Sam’s predicament. Perhaps he shouldn’t have used such ominous wording.

“Dean, stop. Sam is fine…I think.”

“…You think?!”

“I’m John, your father…I believe Sam and I have swapped bodies. I’m at Stanford, so I’m assuming that Sam is wherever I was.”

“Sam was right.” Dean’s voice said thoughtfully after several seconds of silence, “Our lives are fuckin’ weird. Okay, so you were hunting some Thing in Ohio, right?”

“Was I?” John asked, “I don’t remember anything before I appeared in Sam’s body.”

They talked for a while longer, then Dean agreed to find out what was happening with Sam.

///

In Ohio

“…it is not necessary for the bullets to be made of silver.”

Sam Winchester did not believe he was in Kansas anymore…or California where he was supposed to be, for that matter.

One second, he was in front of his class giving a speech, then suddenly he found himself standing in a dingy motel room with a sore shoulder. He scanned the place. There was a woman sitting at the table eating pizza.

“You need to go now,” he told her. He didn’t know who she was or what she was doing there and he didn’t want to. He just needed for her to be gone. His noticed as he spoke that his voice didn’t sound the way that it was supposed to.

“You’re wish is my command, Mister Winchester.”

Just like that, the woman left without another word.

Already, Sam had his suspicions about what had happened. To be sure though, he walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror.

_Yep._

He had turned into his father.

_Well this is bullshit._

Instead of panicking, he decided to try and find out what had brought his father to this town. In theory, if he could find the monster, he could solve this problem on his own. He didn’t need to call anybody to save him.

Sam sat down at the table where his dad’s laptop was, and fired it up. He started by scrolling through John’s internet search history.

‘Anarchy in Granville Ohio’

‘Prisoner’s Set Free’

‘Record Numbers Killed in Driving Accidents’

‘Second Grade Student Discovers Possible Cancer Vaccine’

_Gotta be a witch._

This realization made him pause and reconsider the woman who had been in his room earlier. He would have to find her, he decided.

Several hours of research later, Sam was almost certain that he was dealing with a witch.

At one point he had even tried and call his dad so that they could discuss the case, but found that he didn’t have any cell service.

Soon, the internet went out too.

Sam was freaked out. He didn’t know what was going on, he had no way of contacting the outside world, and he was beginning to feel claustrophobic.

Then there was a knock at the door. He looked through the peep hole, and there was Dean.

Sam had never opened a door so fast.

“Hey, Sammy.”

“It’s Sam,” Sam said automatically. “What are you doing here?”

“Dad called; said you might be in trouble.”

“Yeah right.”

“Yeah, that is right. He’s at Stanford right now.”

“What!?”

“Yeah, uh, he hates Phil and thinks that your RA is a lizard person. Oh, and some girl named Jessica is having a party.”

Sam wanted to kill something. He’d worked so hard to escape this life and become a normal college student, and now his dad was ruining that too.

“He ruins everything!”

“Hey, it’s not like he asked for this.”

“Didn’t he though? He could have gotten a normal job, with an actual house but no. He had to turn us into homeless murderers!”

“That’s not fair. We’ve been over this, Sammy, Dad did the best he could.”

“Why do you always take his side?”

“Because I’m doing the best I can too.”

Sam groaned. He knew that he sounded like a petulant child, but he couldn’t seem to stop. 

“Fine. What can you tell me about the case dad was working on?”

“There’s not much to tell. Dad doesn’t remember anything, I only know what he told me on the phone before he got here.” Dean replied. Sam sat down at the computer, and Dean took the chair the woman had been sitting in that morning. He helped himself to the pizza.

“I don’t know how long that’s been there,” Sam told him, “You’re probably going to get salmonella.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Dean replied, his mouth full. Sam rolled his eyes.

“How did you even get here?” Sam asked, “I thought they weren’t letting anybody in.”

“Yeah, the National Guard and the CDC pretty much have the whole town quarantined. I snuck in through the woods over by the hill. Had to leave my vehicle unattended.”

“It’ll probably get stolen. This whole town seems to be been overtaken by a spirit of general lawlessness.”

“That’s cool,” Dean replied, “Car's not mine.”

Sam rolled his eyes again.

Dean finished the pizza, then asked for the keys to John's truck.

“Here,” Sam said, tossing the keys, “but I told you, they aren’t letting anyone into the town.”

“We’re not just anyone, you have to know Dad was working under an alias,” Dean replied with a grin. Sam checked John’s wallet while his brother selected an identification badge, “We’re special agents Smith and Jones with the FBI.”


	3. Three

Chapter 3

Sam and Dean drove into town. Their badges worked with the guard.

“The CDC thinks this is the result of some kind of chemical warfare,” Dean explained as they drove towards City Hall which had been taken over by the organization. The National Guard was operating out of the police station.

“How do you know that?” Sam demanded.

“I asked.”

Sam rolled his eyes.

“Careful with that,” Dean warned, “your face might get stuck.”

“Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

The boys grinned at one another, for a moment it was almost like old times. Then reality set in and Sam remembered that he was in his father’s body and that he didn’t want to be here.

Sam noticed that with the exception of the occasional individual dressed in either a Hazmat suit or in army fatigues, the streets were deserted. Dean didn’t say much as he drove. Sam was still upset about the fight they had had when he had decided to go to college, so he wasn’t much for talking either. They had already established that neither of them knew much about the case.

Dean had said that John’s memory had been wiped of all of his previous activities, and thus would not be helpful in setting them on the right track. Their father had wanted to steal a vehicle and drive out to meet them. Sam however, now able to make phone calls from the truck thanks to a special antenna Dean had rigged from an old radio and some tinfoil, had convinced him to stay at Stanford and maintain his GPA and social life. He was pretty sure that he would regret that decision.

Oddly, John had agreed without much coaxing.

The boys had agreed that they were probably looking for a witch.

Dean asked Sam to describe the woman that had been in the room with him that morning again.

“Again, Dean? Why don’t you actually listen for once?”

Dean didn’t answer. Sam sighed, and did as he was asked.

“She was average height, maybe a little taller. Thin. Blonde. Pretty. Looked like a model.”

“Eye color? Special markings?”

“She wasn’t a dog, Dean.”

“Obviously, or you’d have kept her around and bought yourselves a suburban two-story with a white picket fence and a neighborhood watch group.”

“Shut up.”

Dean did.

“I think her eyes were blue. Kind of like the sky. I remember thinking that they were pretty.”

Dean nodded, and kept driving. They didn’t have a clue where to start looking, so the pair started knocking on doors under the guise of checking on the inhabitants and asking about any symptoms.

The first door Sam knocked on belonged to a young couple. The wife yelled at them for waking the baby…who turned out to be the husband. The adult male in the house was sitting in the living room floor screaming his head off, while the infant sat in it’s highchair spelling SOS with it's alphabet cereal.

Sam interviewed Alicia, the wife, while Dean asked for directions to the bathroom.

“…Bernard was a police officer before all of this started,” Alicia explained, quickly picking up the spilled cereal and scooping young Anthony up for a nap. “Weird things have been happening all over town lately. First the speed limits were abolished, and then all of those horrible people escaped from the jail. Then this disease struck so many of the guards. They should have quarantined us sooner. Maybe things wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand.”

“You’re right, ma’am,” Sam started to say. Alicia put little Tony down for his nap and studied him closely.

“You are that detective that was here yesterday.”

Sam glanced up at Dean, who was in the living room studying Bernard’s behavior. The brother’s made eye contact and mouthed ‘oh shit.’

“What? Oh gosh,” Sam said, thinking quickly, “You must have met Josh. He should have warned you. We’re twins. Absolutely nothing in common. Mom always referred to him as ‘The Disappointment’.”

“Right,” Alicia sighed, becoming distracted again when Bernard started screaming. “Odd how you've both got identical shoulder injuries. Maybe he did say something. I don’t remember. He wanted to know about any strange happenings in the neighborhood, and he asked a lot of questions about Bernard. Apparently, they have Bernie on camera unlocking all of the cells. I told him that my husband would never do such a thing, and he seemed to believe me.”

“I’m sure that’s true, ma’am. We’ll be going now,” Dean was in the room now with his hand on the back of Sam’s arm. Sam really wanted to shake off his brother’s hand, but that would probably look like an extreme response to such an ordinary gesture. “Thanks again for speaking with us.”

“Just figure out what’s happening to Bernie.”

“We’ll do our best, ma’am.” Dean replied, steering Sam towards the door.

Once they were back out on the sidewalk, Sam did break out of his brother’s grasp.

“Dude, what the hell was that about?” he demanded.

Dean held up a small canvas bag that smelled like garbage and had a drawstring closure.

“Hex bag.”

“Definitely a witch then.”

Dean nodded.

“I looked around upstairs, which of course is code for snooped through her panty drawer. There’s nothing sketchy happening there.”

“So, white cotton briefs then?”

Dean laughed.

Sam trusted that a thorough search had been done…hunting was the only thing Dean had ever been good at.

They found a trashcan behind the house and set the hex bag on fire. Then they waited for about ten minutes.

“How are we gonna find out if it worked?” Sam wondered.

“I’ll knock on the door and tell whoever answers that I forgot something in the bathroom.”

Dean did just that. The baby screamed.

Bernard opened the door.

“Yes?” he demanded.

“Hi, I’m Special Agent Smith with the FBI. My partner and I were just here to interview your wife. I’m afraid I left my pocket square in your bathroom. It’s terribly sentimental. May I?”

Sam waited in the truck while his brother checked in with Bernard.

“Well?” he demanded the second Dean slid into the driver’s seat.

“Like nothing ever happened.”

///

Hours spent canvassing the neighborhood and spending time interviewing their fellow agents as well as the CDC and the military presence left them with a list of those infected by the mysterious age-altering virus. Everybody was spooked. They couldn’t go public with the information because it sounded like something from a science fiction movie. The president was thinking of nuking the town and being done with it.

Sam tuned out the conversation Dean was having with Staff Sargent Hodges. Instead, he contemplated the connection between all of the names on the list. Like Bernard Sanders, many of the men had been working at the jail during the break out. The list also contained big names in local government and law enforcement. So, obvious connections there. What Sam couldn’t figure out though was how they had all encountered the same witch.

He was startled from his thoughts when Dean announced that they were leaving.

“Now what?” Sam demanded as the two climbed back into the truck.

“We’re going to find Marsha Brady.”

“Seriously?”

“Name ring some bells for you, Sammy?” Dean asked lightly.

“You could say that,” Sam snorted. “That’s really her name?”

“Not likely,” Dean agreed, “already sounds guilty to me.”

“Maybe her parents hated her.”

They pulled up to Marsha’s house. It was a white two-story with several gnomes in the yard. Sam knocked on the door this time, and he and Dean offered their badges to the woman who answered. Sam recognized her immediately as the woman who had been in his motel room.

Dean jumped in front of Sam just as the woman threw a handful of cilantro, screamed something in a foreign language and slammed the door shut. Sam heard the lock click and cursed.

“Come on!” he shouted at Dean, before running to the back of the house hoping that there was another door. There was, but it was locked also. He managed to find a window that was unlocked, and crawled through it. The witch was nowhere to be found.

Sam searched the house and came up with all sorts of witchy paraphernalia, but the witch had vanished. He had never heard of one of them teleporting, but he supposed that anything could happen. He did collect a few spell books that seemed to be her personal preferences and a couple of diaries that were under the bed.

He collected every hex bag that he could find, planning to burn them later.

Then he realized that he was in the house by himself, and that he hadn’t heard from Dean in over an hour.

“Dean!” he shouted, annoyed at whatever his brother was doing. Didn’t Dean realize that Sam needed for this case to be solved quickly so that he could get back to his own life? It was like his brother was being incompetent on purpose.

Sam opened the front door and looked out. The truck was still in front of the house, and he didn’t see Dean doing anything in the yard. He was about to go back inside when his eye caught on a pile of clothing on the front stoop.

A leather jacket, a green flannel, a black t-shirt, and a pair of old jeans. Exactly what Dean had been wearing. Either Dean was off somewhere running around naked, or the witch had done something to him. Either was a likely possibility with Dean involved, but Sam was betting on the latter. Now that he thought about it, he remembered the witch shouting something. A spell of some sort.

Carefully, Sam prodded the pile of clothing. There was movement. Sam used the tip of his boot to move the hem of Dean’s t-shirt off of something that was moving in the middle of the pile.

“Rrrrrribbit.”

///

Palo Alto, California.

John had studied the notes for Sam’s Biology exam for as long as he could stand it. The definitions were now all running together. The diagrams seemed like gibberish. He still had another day to study, so he had taken Jessica up on her party suggestion.

From what John understood, Jessica lived off-campus with a group of girls, including the pink-haired one he had met at lunch.

Sam’s phone rang. His own name flashed on the screen.

“Hello?”

“…..Dad? So, get this, there’s a witch here that is somehow body-swapping men and children. We had her, but she got away. Also, she turned Dean into a frog.”

“Slow down…what now?”

“…A witch is using magic to cause men in positions of power to swap bodies with their youngest sons. Mostly local government and law enforcement. The town is currently under the control of the Army and the CDC. There’s a curfew, and right now I’m breaking it.”

“Be careful, son. What do you mean, you had her?”

“We asked a lot of questions, and the answers led us to the doorstep of a woman named Marsha Brady.”

“Seriously?”

“That’s exactly what I said when Dean told me. Yeah, so she threw cilantro into Dean’s face and shouted at us in German, and now he’s a frog.”

“Okay. What about the witch?”

“She teleported.”

“They can do that?”

“Apparently.”

“Well…fuck.”

“That’s what I said when Dean hopped out of his pants and said ‘ribbit’.”

“Sam, I know you’re pissed, and I get it. Just let me think for a second.”

_One thing at a time._

“Okay, first, make sure that your brother stay’s safe. He’s a frog now, and he probably has no idea what’s happening. He also likely doesn’t know how to be a frog, so he’s gonna rely on you to protect him from predators, and you know, getting squished.”

“…He’s perched on top of my head right now. It’s really annoying.”

John laughed.

“You just look out for him, alright? Consider it a temporary role reversal. Now, about that teleporting witch. Most criminals have a tendency to return to the scene of the crime, or the body dump site. They like to remember the damage they caused. It’s the scene of a good memory for that individual. Like you would look at a postcard from a great vacation, or I would look at a picture of Mary.”

“So, you’re saying that the witch is gonna come back because she’s proud of turning this town into a post-apocalyptic horror story?”

“Exactly. You said she neutralized key authority figures, and a civil war broke out?”

“Basically.”

“Yeah, in her mind, that’s probably the greatest thing she’s ever done. She’s gonna want to keep watching. Most likely, she has future plans to do something similar on a much larger scale. You haven’t seen the last of her.”

“Okay.”

“You, uh, you want me to come down there? I can hop on a plane and be there in a couple of hours.”

“No, Dad, I’ve got this. You just make sure I pass that Biology exam.”

They talked for a while, John making several offers to fly to Ohio, and Sam refusing. Sam asked his father a bunch of questions about his day at school, asked if any of his friends had talked to him.

“…You didn’t scare them all off, did you?”

“No!”

“…are you sure?”

“Well, I hate your roommate, and I’m pretty sure that you RA is a lizard person…and there’s a vampire cult in the library…”

“…DAD!”

“Jessica seems like a very nice girl, son.”

Sam stuttered nervously, and John chuckled.

“She showed me around campus this afternoon while I pretended to have amnesia after your public speaking class. What exactly was that assignment?”

“Professor Benson asked us to give a presentation making a case for something fictional. He said that half the battle was convincing an audience that you believe in what you are talking about. Thus, werewolves. I already had all the information, and the references. It was an easy A.”

“Gotcha. Good thinking.”

“Thanks. So, I guess I’m on frog-sitting duty while we wait for the witch to return. What are you working on?”

“Maybe don’t sit on him? He is a very fragile creature! I’m all studied out. I think I’m gonna check out Jessica’s party. Call if you need anything.”

John hung up, and laughed at what he imagined Sam was thinking right then. Then he grew concerned and sent a text.

‘Srsly, don’t sit on Froggo!’

John felt strange being out of the battle. He was concerned for his sons, but he was also relieved that Sam thought he could handle it. The idea of taking the night off was very appealing, and he felt a bit guilty about that. His feelings were complicated. He was still considering the idea of hopping on a plane to Ohio, when he received a text from ‘Jess’.

‘Party!!! CU there!’

John grinned. He might not be able to help his son with the witch, but he could help him get the girl.


	4. Four

Chapter 4

John went to the party. It was a lot like the house parties that he remembered attending as a youth, but with less drugs, or public nudity.

The only people he recognized were Pink-Hair, Neck-Beard, and Jessica.

Jessica latched on to John’s arm the moment she saw him, and did not let go. She steered him from one group to another, introducing him and making a generally great impression on all in attendance.

Beer flowed freely.

John impressed all of Sam’s friends by doing a keg stand.

He then partnered with Neck-Beard for several rounds of beer pong with a pair of very serious Asian twins with names that he couldn’t pronounce. The twins won by a landslide, and Jessica slid in to comfort him.

He pretended to be much more upset by the loss than he actually was, because her proximity indicated that she was very fond of Sam and wanted to know him better. For his part, John flirted awkwardly, and wouldn’t let her kiss him. He told her that it was because they had both had a lot to drink. It was really because he didn’t want to steal Sam’s first kiss…and because of a nurse in Minnesota who had recently started calling him again.

Jessica accepted the news like a champ, pleased to see that Sam respected her enough to require complete sobriety and consent.

“I like that consent is important to you.” She murmured, half asleep on his shoulder at two in the morning. They were sitting on a couch between two other couple that were participating in sexual activities.

“I think consent is sexy,” John replied.

“Mmm, what if I said I was completely sober?” Jessica asked.

“I would call bullshit, my dear. You had at least three glasses of that Purple Death Punch.”

“Fair enough,” she replied, “but I’m still gonna pout about it. Here I am, drunk, vulnerable and begging you to ravish me; and you’re saying no. You’re not gay, are you?”

John laughed.

“Not gay. Just very drunk. When we do decide to go there, I want us both to remember it.”

“You seem to know all of the right things to say, Sam Winchester. I like you.”

John dozed off for a few hours before he was rudely awakened when somebody screamed.

“Oh shit!”

Then he was on high alert.

“What is it?” John demanded, leaping up off the couch before remembering that Jessica was asleep beside him. “What’s going on?”

“Wha time issit?” the blonde girl mumbled, having fallen over onto the couch when John stood.

“I’m late for Anatomy!” somebody wailed.

“Fuckin’ Intro to Economics!”

John looked at his watch, and saw that it was already past nine in the morning. He deduced that the emergency was that several people had missed their 8am classes. Sam’s first class wasn’t until 10:15am.

“I’ve got to go back to my dorm and get ready for class,” John told Jessica. “You want me to kick everybody out first?”

The sleepy blonde nodded without opening her eyes.

So, John made everyone leave, even going room to room and evicting any secluded couples that didn’t belong there. Then he headed back to Sam's dorm.

Phil’s pizza was still on the floor, and unless John was mistaken, several slices were missing.

John shuddered.

He gathered a change of clothes and headed to the bathroom for a cold shower, hoping that the low temperatures would wake him up. After he got dressed, he collected his books and his backpack, and decided to find some coffee before class. He had a light headache due to dehydration. A sports drink would probably clear that up.

John decided that being young was awesome. If he partied the way he had last night with his older body, he’d be useless for a week.

On his way to the elevator, John passed Nick the RA returning from his own night of debauchery.

John grunted, in what passed as a greeting between kids these days. The other boy literally hissed at him.

///

Granville Ohio

Sam had parked the stolen vehicle down the street from the witch’s house. It was a silver Mazda. He had been sitting in it all night. Dean was perched on the dashboard watching him closely. Occasionally the frog’s little pink tongue would dart out, and his bug-eyes would get even wider. Sam suspected that his traveling companion was a very anxious frog. He wondered if frogs could have heart attacks.

He’d taken CPR classes before, and knew how to perform the life-saving procedures on humans in all stages of life. He could even perform it on the family pet. The instructor had not covered small amphibious creatures.

“Relax Dean,” Sam told the Frog, wondering if his brother could even understand him, “We’ll kill the witch and fix you.”

Sam could see the frog’s lungs filling with air, and then being released.

“Rrrrribit.”

“Exactly. Never fear, Sammy’s here!”

The frog was silent. Sam really hoped that frogs didn’t understand English.

There was movement in front of the house. A man dressed in orange scrubs, and a set of steel shackles was knocking on the door. The door opened and Marsha, now with dark brown hair, stuck her head out and looked both ways. She then shuffled the man into the house.

Maybe a boyfriend? Husband? Brother? Marsha Brady was an obvious alias, and the internet in this town wasn’t working. It had been a small miracle that he had been able to call his father.

No, that had been Dean, and his weird knowledge of mechanical things.

“So, now I’m thinking that Marsha swapped all of the prison guards so that this guy could escape. But why?” Sam narrated out loud. He felt as though the frog was judging him. At least they knew that the witch was back in the house. The pistol loaded with witch-killing bullets weighed heavy in Sam’s pocket. He would have liked to have run in guns-a-blazing, but he had to be practical.

She was a witch, harboring an escaped convict. Sam was a guy with a gun and a frog.

He had burned the hex bags after the phone call with his dad. A conversation with the CDC told him that most of the cases had mysteriously been healed. Sam had then searched the motel room for his own hex bag.

Dean had found it first, and was sitting on top of it when Sam found the two of them.

It was in the glove box now. He had wanted to burn it, but he also wanted to de-frog Dean and gank that witch. So, he was waiting.

Sam remembered witches being some of his dad’s toughest cases. Because they were technically human, it was hard to just kill them. Some could even be shown the errors of their ways. Most couldn’t. and Marsha seemed to be of the majority. She had caused widespread chaos, and had tasted power. He didn’t think that was something that she would willingly give up. So, he already knew that he would be killing her. He wasn’t thrilled about it. While Sam didn’t like killing Things, he was okay with the Saving People aspect of the job. Saving people was important, and it all came down to a balance. This Thing hadn’t actually killed anybody that Sam knew of, but it had taken away all of the rules and allowed people to do anything that they wanted.

That was probably the scariest aspect of this case. That people had done terrible things just because they could. Sam was glad that the Army had them under control now, and that eventually they would all be rehabilitated, if possible. It was like a widespread disease, but it wasn’t something that could be cured with a round of antibiotics. It was going to take time. Some people were going to get locked up. Some of them deserved it.

Sam had learned in one of his criminal justice classes that people could live with sadistic urges for years without ever acting on them, and many made their first kill because an opportunity presented itself. A girl walking by herself at night. A child away from their peers. An urge. An opportunity. Isolation, ensuring that they wouldn’t be caught.

All three elements had presented themselves in this town. The urges had been in place all along. The opportunity had arisen when the police had stopped enforcing the rules. Isolation hadn’t been necessary, because who can resist an ‘anything-goes’ environment? Actions had to have consequences that were enforced, or else all the laws in the world were meaningless.

Sam decided to smoke the witch out. What was a little arson between anarchists?

He used matches and accelerant to start little fires in a few locations around the perimeter of the house. They burned quickly, and he could hear the fire alarms inside the house. Sam didn’t think the witch would try teleporting again with her human companion present.

A few minutes later they both came barreling through the front door out into the yard. The man was coughing, and the woman looked upset. Sam took the shot.

He hit the man over the head with his gun, and the man went down.

Sam looked to the Mazda to see if Dean was back.

No change.

So, he searched the witch, looking for any jewelry, amulets or talismans that may have been the source of her power. There was a strange looking amulet around her neck, and Sam pocketed it. He then crammed the witch’s body into the trunk of the car and called the hotline the Army had set up in town to report criminal activity.

Salting and burning the body of a supernatural creature, even while injured, turned out to be just like riding a bicycle. He handled it in a remote area in a small patch of woods behind some hills. Then he returned to the motel room with the intention of smashing the witch’s amulet and burning that last hex bag.

Later…

When John woke up, the first thing he noticed was the pain in his shoulder. He found himself back in his motel room. He was lying on the bed and he could see his eldest crouched in the corner of the room.

“Get dressed, Dean. We’ve got work to do.” 


End file.
